Blog

Neyer Holdings Corp. purchased a building along the streetcar route in downtown Cincinnati and plans to redevelop the property.

An affiliate of Neyer Holdings purchased the former Hartford Insurance Building at 630 Main St. from Vulcan Property Management Co. for $2.8 million. Tom Neyer Jr., chairman and CEO of downtown-based Neyer Holdings, said he will spend the next couple of months determining the best use for the 60,000-square-foot building.
Neyer Holdings purchased the former Hartford Insurance Building on Main Street for $2.8… more

“The quality of the structure is outstanding,” Neyer told me. “There are a number of great options in front of us. The location is great and improving every week.”
The former Hartford Insurance Building is located across the street from a northbound streetcar stop.

As I first reported last week, a team of developers are planning to build two condo towers a few blocks to the north at Eighth and Main streets. That’s just one of a growing number of projects announced along the streetcar line. The streetcar is scheduled to start running on it in September.

As for the Neyer’s building, he’s looking at a couple of options. One would be a conversion to apartments. Another would be to spruce up the building and continue to use it as class B office space. The property also includes a couple dozen surface parking lots. The building is currently vacant.
The previous owner had submitted plans to the Cincinnati Historic Conservation Board to convert the building into a garage and build four to five stories of apartments on top of it. The building, constructed in 1960, is in the Main Street Historic District. However, when this application was made, the architect said the building doesn’t contribute to the historic value of the district because of its contemporary design.

Neyer said the building can support parking structurally. It’s among the options that Neyer Holdings is considering.

Neyer plans to move forward with one of the options within the next 12 months.

Neyer Holdings will be the master developer of the property. Neyer Holdings’ Real Estate Group is a real estate developer and investor that works on projects across the office, industrial, retail, residential and hospitality segments. Architect Denis Back has worked on preliminary designs for the building, including a number of different uses.

“Anybody reading the Business Courier in the past week has to get excited about the momentum in downtown real estate,” Neyer said.

A development team is looking to transform the intersection of Eighth and Main streets in downtown Cincinnati by building two, mid-rise luxury condominium towers.
Greiwe Development Group and Terrex LLC have two sites under contract with plans to build about 90 condos in the next four to five years, according to a letter to Beth Johnson, urban conservator at the city of Cincinnati. Phase I would include a new condo tower built on the parking lot at the northwest corner of Eighth and Main streets. Phase II would involve the demolition of existing buildings at 719-721 Main St. to be replaced with a second condo tower.

Greiwe Development and Terrex plan to invest a total of $50 million at the intersection.
Tom Rowe, principal of Oakley-based Terrex, said this is the ideal location downtown to add residential units.
“There are tons of apartments built there and more are being built; it has a strong residential feel,” Rowe told me. “It’s also directly on the streetcar line, which is a huge benefit to these condo projects.”

The properties are located along the streetcar line, with a northbound stop directly in front of the properties and a southbound stop a block away.
The developers are requesting a conditional approval for demolition at the Historic Conservation Board meeting on March 21 for the existing buildings at 719-721 Main St. A final demolition permit will be requested at the time the developers apply for building permits. In Rick Greiwe’s letter to Johnson he said they decided to split the process because they don’t want to close on the building until they have a decision from the board.
“Our goal is to complement the historic district with two signature buildings adjacent to each other on Eighth and Main,” Greiwe wrote in his letter to Johnson.
Each condo tower is expected to have about 45 condo units. These would be the first for-sale product built in the Central Business District since the Great Recession, according to documents from the development team.
Rowe said the developers determined condos would be the best fit for these sites.

“There is a huge number of people who want to be part of re-urbanization,” Rowe said. “A lot of empty nesters prefer to own versus rent – people who own tend to be more vested and more active in the community.”
The details of the condo towers are still being determined, but Rowe said they will likely have about 45 units each with one parking space per unit in garages above street-level retail and amenity space but below the first floor of condos.

The north tower will consist of a first floor retain and common area with 10 stories of condos. The retail space will be about 2,900 square feet,
The south tower would be the same size with the same number of units. However, this building would have about 4,100 square feet of retail space at street level.
The building at 721 Main St. was built in 1875 as a warehouse and housed a distributor, J. Cooper Rubber Co., and several furniture companies, according to documents submitted to the Historic Conservation Board.
The property at 719-721 N. Main St. is under contract for purchase by Terrex for $860,500. Terrex is currently in its due diligence. The current owner of the building is ELKA Real Estate Co. If Terrex decided to go forward, the closing would occur in April 2016.
Donato’s Pizza has a lease for about 3,700 square feet of space on the ground floor that ends in July 2017.
According to the documents, Terrex looked extensively at renovating the existing building, either for conversion to apartments or office space. Neither use would have resulted in a positive return on investment. Even with state and federal historic tax credits, Terrex determined those incentives would still result in a $1 million deficit.
The current owners purchased the building in 1952 and were not aware of any landmark designations at that time. Terrex is aware the building sits in the Main Street Historic District and is working to understand whether its intended use will be permitted.
To make the substantial investment in the area, the development team writes that demolition of the existing building is required.
Rowe said the development team has a lot of steps to take before the projects begin, but they are focused on clearing the demolition hurdle for the time being.
“We need to get over the biggest hurdle first,” Rowe said.

The development team that wants to build a $90 million apartment tower along the banks of the Ohio River presented its vision for the project on March 23 to Cincinnati’s Urban Design Review Board.

The board, which advises the city manager on design decisions but does not have the power to compel design changes, mostly praised the 25-story, 352-unit apartment tower.

Jim Borders, president of Atlanta-based Novare Group, presented plans for SkyHouse Cincinnati to the five-member board Wednesday afternoon. He explained to the board his company’s history, the SkyHouse development and why the developers decided to look at building an apartment tower in Cincinnati.

“Our company vision is to create great urban experiences,” Borders said during the roughly hour-long meeting. “We like to be in places where people want to partner with us to do that.”

For the most part, the board had a lot of positive comments about the project, calling it “wonderful.” The five-member board includes chair Buck Niehoff, John Senhauser, Paul Muller, Jay Chatterjee and Jim Fitzgerald.

Members did mention they thought the color of the glass, which was green on the initial rendering, might not be the best fit for Cincinnati’s skyline.

The board suggested possibly changing the color of the windows to better match the rest of Cincinnati.

Muller, a board member and executive director of the Cincinnati Preservation Association, expressed his concerns about the base of the building not matching up with the rest of the tower.

Chatterjee, a board member and dean emeritus of University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning, wanted to know how the tower, which is very similar to other SkyHouses in other cities, would be different.
Loomis said the site of SkyHouse Cincinnati was designed to tie into Yeatman’s Cove Park and Sawyer Point Park.

Borders and his team took the board’s input and plan to come back with another rendering that addresses the board’s issues.

SkyHouse Cincinnati would be located at the former Montgomery Inn Banquet Center on East Pete Rose Way at the north end of the Purple People Bridge. It would be 25 stories tall, with 84 studios, 174 one-bedroom units, 76 two-bedroom units, 18 three-bedroom units, a four-level, 504-space parking deck, a pocket park, a dog park, 3,000 square feet of ground floor retail and terraced steps leading down to the riverfront.

Tom Gabelman, a member of Frost Brown Todd’s construction practice group, is working with Novare Group on the SkyHouse Cincinnati project. He said he expects the project to go back before the board within a couple of weeks.

A number of recent projects in downtown Cincinnati were met with more criticism. The board wanted a bolder, more distinctive look for the AC Hotel by Marriott at the Banks, it described General Electric’s Global Operations Center at the Banks as “routine,” and in 2011 the board called the initial designs for Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati “ghostly” and “jarring.”

An affiliate of a local real estate development company purchased three tiny downtown properties for $1 million.

Nieman Investors Ltd., an affiliate of Sycamore Township-based Rookwood Properties, purchased 127 Central Ave., 121 E. Central Parkway and 1027 Main St. from Lapille LLC for $1 million. Combined, the three properties total a third of an acre.

Rookwood Properties purchased the parking lot around the former Woodward Building & Loan building for $1 million.

Fred Kanter, partner with Rookwood Properties, said the properties were purchased as an investment. The properties include parking lot space at the corner of Central Parkway and Main Street, Cincinnati Business Courier reports.

The properties are just east of a 1-acre parking lot owned by Rookwood Properties at the southeast corner of Central Parkway and Walnut Street. Rookwood Properties has been considering a $50 million development at this site, according to WCPO.

In January 2015, the Business Courier wrote about the Central and Walnut site as one of the best properties for development along the streetcar line. Rookwood has owned the 1-acre site for decades.
At the time, the Business Courier noted this site would be ideal for a mixed-use development that includes a grocery store because it sits on the border of the Central Business District and Over-the-Rhine, Central Parkway is one of the best options for bringing in trucks to deliver goods to a grocery and there are streetcar stops on either side of the site, making it easy to carry a couple bags of food back home, whether you’re headed to the Banks or OTR, and get back while the milk is still cold. According to WCPO, Kanter showed his plans to Kroger back in 2014, but he declined to say if the grocery giant was interested.

The median price of existing homes is rising, but the increases don’t seem to be motivating many sellers or new-home builders, contributing to the growing lack of inventory in many markets. While NAR’s recent existing-home sales report showed January’s total housing inventory was up 3 percent from December, it was still lower than a year ago.
“The spring buying season is right around the corner and current supply levels aren’t even close to what’s needed to accommodate the subsequent growth in housing demand,” says Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. “Home prices ascending near or above double-digit appreciation aren’t healthy – especially considering the fact that household income and wages are barely rising.”

The Fiscal Times recently looked at the main reasons behind the lack of inventory.

1. Builders aren’t building new homes.

Builders say that the cost and availability of labor is a huge factor in why housing starts are down this year. A recent Commerce Department report showed that housing starts fell 3.8 percent in January month-over-month. “The disappointing construction numbers reflect the loss of small builders and a shortage of construction labor,” says Yun. “Small construction companies have traditionally been the backbone of new-home building, but the difficult financing environment created by local banks since the downturn has thinned their ranks.

2. A slowdown in the distressed market.

Distressed sales are down from 11 percent compared to a year ago, and are at the lowest level since November 2007, NAR reports.

3. People are staying put in their homes.

Why aren’t people interested in selling when home prices keep rising? There are a few reasons why they’re not budging. More than two-thirds of baby boomer owners, for example, are choosing to make renovations to their home so they can age in place rather than move. There’s also a decrease in people moving to a new area for a job, which previously was a big reason why new buyers would sell. Many owners are simply just stuck in their homes due to equity issues. According to CoreLogic, around 8.1 percent of homes are worth less than their mortgage. Finally, many owners are stuck because of the lack of inventory. Sure, they would be willing to sell, but then they face not having decent options in terms of buying.

Source: “Prices Are Rising. Why Aren’t There More Homes For Sale?” The Fiscal Times (Feb. 25, 2016)

Since the beginning of this year, 30-year rates have fallen nearly 40 basis points, “helping housing markets sustain their momentum in this year,” says Sean Becketti, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. The National Association of REALTORS® reported this week that existing-home sales had increased 4 percent in February over January and are up 11 percent from last year.

Freddie Mac reports the following national averages with mortgage rates for the week ending Feb. 25:

30-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 3.62 percent, with an average 0.6 point, dropping from last week’s 3.65 percent average. Last year at this time, 30-year rates average 3.80 percent.
15-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 2.93 percent, with an average 0.5 point, falling from last week’s 2.95 percent average. A year ago, 15-year rates averaged 3.07 percent.
5-year hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages: averaged 2.79 percent, with an average 0.5 point, falling from last week’s 2.85 percent. Last year at this time, 5-year ARMs averaged 2.99 percent.
Source: Freddie Mac

Nine new townhomes near 15th and Elm streets could bring the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood among its first million-dollar single family residences.

Cincinnati’s Historic Conservation Board approved plans Monday for the new construction project in the 200 block of West 15th Street. The more than $10 million project also includes the renovation of an old fire station along 15th Street for residential and potentially commercial use, said Jim Daniels, president of Montgomery-based Daniels Homes.

Daniels Homes is developing the three-phase project. However, construction could begin on the first project phase – a five-unit block of townhomes on the north side of 15th west of Elm – before the end of 2015, Daniels said. Four of the five townhomes are already under contract for purchase, he said. The homes would be completed in less than a year after construction begins.

Townhomes will feature at least two bedrooms, two-car garages, and a covered second floor exterior rear deck. Prospective buyers can opt to have an elevator in their unit in addition to other custom options. The current list price for units without customization is about $639,000. One home is under contract for more than $1 million, Daniels said.

“We’re hoping the neighborhood is ready for it,” said Daniels, who launched project planning about a year ago. “We’ve been watching it. We’ve heard about where things are going. It’s really up for quite a while been more (about) condos than single-family. Now, there’s a demand for that.

“The renaissance in Over-the-Rhine is real and it’s not going away and there’s confidence to make this type of product available.”

The second project phase would add four more townhomes on the south side of 15th Street, from about 215-221 W. 15th St.

For the old fire station, renovations would convert upper floors of the 15,000-square-foot building to serve as a loft for Daniels and his wife. The former station’s ground floor could serve as a parking garage for residents and that could sit below apartments or office space, Daniels said.

The townhomes are being designed to blend modern features with historic architecture of the neighborhood.

“By respecting the historical context of the neighborhood’s forms and proportions, these homes were designed for the needs of today’s urban dweller,” said lead architect Jeff Mike of Designpoint Architecture.

Designpoint has been working with Over-the-Rhine firm Hampton Architects on the project since the spring. Mike said it’s still hard to believe million-dollar homes are being sold in a neighborhood showing signs of neglect and disinvestment a decade ago.

“It’s just unbelievably refreshing that people have embraced Over-the-Rhine,” Mike said. “With the city’s posture with the streetcar and the refurbishing of Findlay Market, it’s turned into a wonderful opportunity for Cincinnati to show their best foot.”

The development team has been working for several months with the Historic Conservation Board to get clearance to complete construction and demolition work at the project site. Since the project is occurring within the Over-the-Rhine Historic District, the board had to weigh in and evaluate the project’s design in accordance with guiding design principles for the neighborhood.

The Ensemble Theatre has raised $4.2 million that will allow it to reshape the buildings it owns on Vine Street and provide more amenities for its patrons, including a longer season, more programming, a bigger lobby and new, more-accessible seating.
The Over-the-Rhine theater believes the addition of eight performances per show each year will bring another 9,000 patrons and $160,000 in economic impact to Over-the-Rhine. That’s on top of the $762,000 in direct spending by its current 29,567 patrons at OTR restaurants and businesses and the temporary economic impact of the construction jobs and work created by the project. Three out of every four Ensemble patrons eat and drink at local restaurants and bars before or after seeing a show, according to the theater’s survey.

Ensemble owns three buildings at 1117-1127 Vine St. – 40 percent of the block it sits on – which will be renovated as a part of the project. The buildings will be combined into a single, 8,200-square-foot complex.
“We’re doing this without destroying any of the historic buildings,” said producing artistic director D. Lynn Meyers. “This connectivity of the buildings – that’s going to make a huge difference.”
Among the improvements:

A larger box office;
A bigger lobby with more natural light flowing into it;
Additional restrooms;
A dedicated bar and concession area;
An elevator to increase disabled access to upper row seating;
A rehearsal hall and scene/costume shop;
Administrative offices;
New seats in the 200-person capacity theater;
A potential increase of five to seven staffers in addition to the current 13 full-time employees.
Ensemble has hired GBBN and Messer Construction to renovate its buildings. Ensemble’s theater will be renamed the Lucille and Charles Carothers Theatre to honor the Next Stage Campaign’s leading contributors. Other lead gifts have been made by the Otto M. Budig Family Foundation, Susan Friedlander and the late William A. Friedlander, the Adele and Robert Schiff Foundation, Richard Rosenthal, the Mitchell S. & Jacqueline P. Meyers Foundation, and co-founders Kenneth Mahler and his late wife Mary Taft Mahler and the late Ruth D. and John Sawyer.
Included in its capital stack is $1.2 million in state matching funds and a $200,000 grant from the city of Cincinnati. Groundbreaking is set for May with a summer 2017 completion date. The construction will be done in phases so that Ensemble can continue to have performances and not interrupt the 30-year-old company’s season.

The theater also is seeking another $2 million in public contributions during the second phase of its fundraising campaign. That money will be used to beef up operations during the construction phase and once the new facilities open.
The theater endured in Over-the-Rhine even after the 2001 riots, when it had offers to move out of the neighborhood but stayed. While other theaters have seen subscriptions drop recently, Ensemble’s 2,200 subscriptions have been growing.
“We created a vital destination that people wanted to part of,” Meyers said. “There’s a consistent quality of the productions.”

Home owners are increasingly optimistic about gaining equity in their homes this year, but they’re still conservative on how much they’ve truly gained.

Forty-six percent of home owners with a mortgage say they believe they’ll see their equity increase in 2016, and the majority expect to see a gain by as much as 10 percent, according to a new study of 1,000 home owners conducted by the lender loanDepot.
Indeed, about a quarter of home owners surveyed say they expect their equity to increase between 6 and 10 percent this year while 58 percent say they expected equity to increase 1 to 5 percent. Economists have largely predicted equity gains to be between 2.3 and 4.7 percent this year.

Despite the equity optimism, 80 percent of home owners underestimate the amount of value their home has gained since the housing recovery, according to the loanDepot survey.

“Home owners who bought during the housing boom are regaining equity many thought was lost forever, yet too many are not aware of the equity they have gained or they are unclear about how to determine changes in their equity,” says Bryan Sullivan, chief financial officer of loanDepot, LLC. “People who bought after the housing boom when prices were low are realizing home ownership can be a great investment and an asset that they can now leverage through equity to realize many dreams. Whether they choose to leverage their home equity now or reserve it for future needs, millions of home owners have choices today not available just a few years ago.”

Home owners who purchased their home prior to the housing boom or during it – and who then watched their equity fade during the 2007 to 2009 bust – have different views on the equity picture than home owners who purchased post-2009. For example, the study found that more buyers who purchased after 2009 believe:

64% believe their home has gained value since 2013 compared to 58 percent of pre-2009 owners.
50% expect to gain more equity this year compared to 43 percent of pre-2009 buyers.
65% believe they have adequate equity now to take out a home equity loan compared to slightly over half (52%) of post-2009 buyers.

There is no shortage of heated, seemingly eternal debates: Democrat or Republican? Apple or Samsung? Boxers or briefs? Team Edward or Team Jacob (ask some tweens…)? But through it all, one quandary reigns supreme:

Should you live in the city or the suburbs?

And cutting to the chase for homeowners: Which option offers the better long-term investment?

Since the rise of the American suburbs in the mid-20th century, there’s been a growing divide between the glamour, pace and possibilities of city life and the safety, serenity and family-friendliness of suburban life—and the homeowners who are attracted to each.

In 2012, the Associated Press reported that for the first time in a century America’s largest cities were growing faster than their suburbs. But three years later, in 2015, the Brookings Institute showed that city population growth, while still on the rise, appeared to be slowing.

Here at realtor.com®, we believe that home is where the heart is—whether in a split-level ranch house in a sweet township or a converted warehouse loft in an emerging urban neighborhood. But every romance needs a solid foundation, and in the case of real estate it’s the value of your financial investment. Where, we wondered, are homes holding their value best?

We sent our data team to find out. To differentiate between city and suburbs, we relied on Nielsen’s population density data. We then compared home prices in January, from our own listings, with those one year ago. And to round out the picture, we evaluated the most-mentioned home and neighborhood amenities in our listings.

Let’s hit the road, shall we?

Factor 1: Homes appreciate faster in cities

As of January 2016, city homes have seen their values grow by 11.3% from one year ago, outpacing suburban home values, which have grown 6.7%. Currently, homes in urban neighborhoods are listed at significantly higher prices ($431,000) than in the suburbs ($230,000).

Here are the top five markets where urban dwellings are appreciating the fastest:

Rank Market
Urban home price change (Jan. 2015-Jan. 2016)

Suburban home price change (Jan. 2015-Jan. 2016)

1 Honolulu, HI 26.8% 1.9%
2 Pittsburgh, PA 17.3% 0.0%
3 Seattle, WA 29.6% 13.9%
4 Portland, OR 26.3% 14.4%
5 Atlanta, GA 24.5% 13.6%
Much of this growth is due to new construction. Honolulu, for example, has always been a highly desirable place, but in recent years the downtown waterfront area has become hotter then an island blacktop in August due to its growing luxury condominium inventory. In particular, Kakaako, a crane-dotted neighborhood 2 miles from Waikiki Beach, is in the midst of explosive expansion.

Some cities, such as Seattle, are enjoying the benefits of being high-tech epicenters. Others are seeing the results from long-term campaigns to revitalize their older neighborhoods, such as Atlanta’s focus on its once-crumbling Old Fourth Ward.

So does all this mean you should rush back to the city? Not without considering some other factors. Such as…

Factor 2: Your dog will be happier in the suburbs

All that stuff that’s been drilled into you by your parents and endless reruns of “Leave it to Beaver” and “The Brady Bunch” still stands: You’ll have way more room to spread out in the suburbs—they’re great for kids and dogs alike. In general, suburban homes are 300 square-feet bigger than urban homes. With the increased space, more homeowners are able to have features such as a family room, backyard, and garage—all of which they tout in our listings. Never dismiss the power of a nice backyard.

Factor 3: Museums and mojitos vs. trails and teachers

You choose! For city dwellers, you can have a variety of obscure and awesome ethnic restaurants, open all night, just blocks from your front door. You like Sri Lankan cuisine? You can get Sri Lankan cuisine. Or you can hop on the bus or subway to peruse the museum, or drop your paycheck in a pricey boutique. The high life! Listings for homes in the city often check off these boxes.

For suburban residents, you can avoid the fumes of city buses and garbage trucks and opt for a run in the woods—our listings show that more suburban homes boast of their proximity to parks and trails. And suburban towns often boast good public schools. You are more likely to be on your own for food and entertainment, though, so keep the fridge full and your Netflix subscription up-to-date.

Factor 4: Cities are more dangerous, but less than you might think

We all know that cities can be scary places. And, yes, crime stats back this up. But the difference between city safety and suburban safety is becoming less pronounced each year.

According to 2014 FBI crime statistics, within all metropolitan areas in the United States, major cities had twice the property crime rate and 2.5 times the violent crime rate compared to surrounding suburban areas. Even though cities had seen significant declines in crime—a 14% decrease in violent crime and a 12% drop in the property-crime rate from 2009 to 2014—they had a long way to go before catching up with the suburbs.

But, hey, let’s get real: Violent crime is only part of the safety issue, and criminals aren’t the greatest threat to your health and well-being. A University of Pennysylvania study showed that the number of deaths from unintentional injuries are 15 times greater across the United State than those from homicides. And on this metric, urban areas win out: Researchers found that city dwellers are 20% less likely than most rural residents to die from injuries, with the top three causes of death being motor vehicle collisions, firearms and poisoning.

Factor 5: You can choose your route to a healthier lifestyle

In terms of access to health services, no significant disparity was detected between urban and suburban home listings. But as far as environmental conditions go, urban settings are way less than ideal: Filthy air contributes to respiratory diseases, dense population facilitates the spread of viruses, and fast-paced life increases stress levels. While many cities are making progress in cleaning up their air and adding green space, there’s still a considerable gap with many suburbs.

But living in the suburbs is not without its health drawbacks. The lack of public transportation leads people to spend about 18% more time driving, according to researchers at the University of Connecticut and the University of Colorado. City dwellers, on the other hand, tend to walk and bike more, contributing to lower levels of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, the research reveals.

The debate will never end. But at some point, you’ll make your choice, and it’ll be the right one. Eventually.

Over-the-Rhine and Pendleton neighborhoods will get a fully-renovated Ziegler Park in the spring of 2017, equipped with a deep-water pool, sprayground, vast green lawns and a 400-car underground garage.

The $30 million project ceremoniously broke ground Wednesday morning with roughly 100 city leaders, dignitaries and neighbors in attendance at the old Cutter Playground next to the former School for the Creative and Performing Arts at 14th and Sycamore streets.

The project – led by the Cincinnati Center City Development Corp., better known as 3CDC – has been about three years in the making.

The “renaissance of our city will continue in the best possible way by investing in green public spaces that bring people together of all ages and races, East Side and West Side, Downtown and Uptown,” Mayor John Cranley said.

“Look at this facade,” the mayor continued, motioning toward the former SCPA building, well on its way to becoming high-end apartments called the Alumni Lofts. “Maybe we have a mini-Lumenocity here sometime soon.”

Roughly $10 million for the park will be paid for with New Market Tax Credits, said Adam Gelter, executive vice president of development for 3CDC. New Markets Tax Credits are an alternative financing tool that allows private investors to receive federal income tax credits for making investments in low-income neighborhoods.

City Council approved selling another $10 million worth of bonds from its Park and Recreation Improvement Bond Fund to give to 3CDC. All members of council approved this funding, except for Kevin Flynn, who voted “no” and Christopher Smitherman, who abstained from voting.

Flynn shared concerns about the city opening a new park when park leaders have said they can’t afford to keep up with aging park infrastructure throughout the system.

The bonds will be repaid with tax-increment financing from the Over-the-Rhine East District.

The rest of the funding has not yet been raised, according to a 3CDC spokesman Joe Rudemiller. 3CDC’s equity funds are “providing a bridge loan to cover the $11.9 million gap so the project can move forward while we continue fundraising from both public and private sources,” Rudemiller said.

Gelter said this has truly been a community effort.

“Folks from neighbors to business owners, all participated in coming up with a vision for this park,” Gelter said. “I think we’ll all going to be excited about the vision that group put together.”

Park features include an aquatic center and diving well – unique among city pools.

There was talk early on of a climbing wall in the pool, too.

The community met for several planning sessions over the last three years, telling park and 3CDC officials that they want the safety of Washington Park. City officials have said, like Washington Park, the park and parking lot will be monitored 24-7 by security guards.

But the community also told city planners that they want the park to keep its neighborhood feel and not be a destination park like Washington Park.

City officials said the park would be more passive and not play host to huge events.

One of the financial backers is the Kantor family, which made a donation on behalf of its patriarch Milton Kantor, who died in 2012. Kantor founded Victory Wholesale Grocers, based in Springboro, and later in life moved to the Cincinnati area.

“My dad was the voice for people who were never heard,” Rick Kantor, of Montgomery, said of his father. “He was about making life, not only better for so many, but he always wanted people to know that he mattered.”

Rick Kantor declined to say how much money his family contributed to the park’s renovation but said they know he would be proud to support the project.

It is “the perfect combination of creating a sports venue, swimming pool, a place where children and families can enjoy themselves all summer in a safe and productive environment,” Rick Kantor said.

Ziegler Park is named for David Ziegler, Cincinnati’s first mayor.

Ziegler was born in Heidelberg, Germany and served as mayor in 1802 and 1803 after Cincinnati was incorporated as a village.

Mortgage rates stayed low again this week, remaining near their 2015 lows, and offering home buyers and refinancers another chance at lowering their home financing costs.

“After another week of financial market oscillations driven by rumors of potential limits on oil production, the 10-year Treasury yield edged up 5 basis points, and the 30-year mortgage rate remained unchanged at 3.65 percent,” says Sean Becketti, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “Despite this week’s uptick in Treasury yields, the 10-year is still 54 basis points lower than it stood at the end of 2015, while the mortgage rate has dropped only 36 basis points over the same period.”

Freddie Mac reports the following national averages with mortgage rates for the week ending Feb. 18:

30-year fixed-rate mortgage: averaged 3.65 percent, with an average 0.5 point, holding the same average as last week. A year ago, 30-year rates averaged 3.76 percent.
15-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 2.95 percent, with an average 0.5 point, also holding the same as last week. A year ago, 15-year rates averaged 3.05 percent.
5-year hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages: averaged 2.85 percent, with an average 0.4 point, rising from last week’s 2.83 percent average. Last year at this time, 5-year ARMs averaged 2.97 percent.
Source: Freddie Mac

Any buyer knows that a dream home can become a nightmare. But most people don’t expect it to happen to them.

Steven and Michelle Hicks found what looked like the perfect home: a two-story, mid-1920s Dutch colonial on three-quarters of an acre in Millburn, N.J. But months after moving into the 1,856-square-foot house, they realized just how elusive a dream home can be.

When the Hickses started their search in the suburbs a few years ago, they had been looking to leave the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where they had been living in a 1,000-square-foot rental apartment above a Japanese restaurant. It was large, but so dark that they called it “the Batcave.” They wanted a home with a big yard for their growing family; they have a 2-year-old son, Jackson. Mr. Hicks, who grew up in Freehold, N.J., works for a company that does web marketing; Ms. Hicks works in television commercial production.

They focused on towns along New Jersey Transit’s Midtown Direct train into Manhattan and on homes that were within walking distance of the train. They set their budget at $800,000. In a year and a half, they toured 146 houses, “and then we stopped counting,” Ms. Hicks said. They made offers, but found themselves continually outbid.

When a broker urged them to look at 264 Glen Avenue in Millburn in 2012, their long search ended. “It was gorgeous,” Mr. Hicks said. Bay windows let in glorious light, and French doors graced the living room. The front yard had a stream running through it with a footbridge, and the house looked out into the thick woods of the South Mountain Reservation, whose southern tip began just across the street.

They offered the seller’s asking price of $650,000, and “she just took it,” Mr. Hicks recalled. In retrospect, he said, “That should have told us something.”

Once they moved in, problems quickly mounted. New windows had been installed in some rooms, but haphazardly, without insulation. A contractor told them that the previous owner had removed a load-bearing wall without putting a hefty beam across the ceiling to make up for the missing wall. “Nothing was shoring up the second floor,” Ms. Hicks said. An electrician told them the wiring was not grounded, and that a fire could break out at any time.

The basement had a tankless water heater, a selling point for the Hickses. But shortly after they moved in, it stopped working. It was supplying water to a Rube Goldberg series of pipes that traveled all the way to the attic and then into the rooms for the radiators, looping throughout the house and covering so much distance that the water cooled by the time it got to where it was needed. During last year’s often bitter winter, the radiators couldn’t get the second floor warmer than 48 degrees. Ms. Hicks said she was working from home, “but with a hat on” and a space heater glowing.

The previous owner, Carol Royal, said that when she left the house, “everything was fine, as far as I was concerned.” She said she has bought many homes in need of repair, and said, “first-time home buyers, they expect everything to be perfect. But it’s not.”

Top, the house in 2010, a former wreck that had been rescued by a previous owner; below that, the house at the start of the Hickses’ renovations.

Ms. Hicks’s favorite feature of the house had been the hand-laid tile on the floor of the master bath, which gave the impression of a riverbed. But by the end of their first summer, the tiles were cracking. The plywood subfloor was inadequate and incomplete; the floor was sinking.

That winter, they lost access to one of the showers when the pipes froze; the pipes ran along an outside wall over the covered porch and had not been insulated.

Some things simply seemed slipshod. When Mr. Hicks leaned against the granite countertop on the kitchen island, it slid. It had never been attached.

The Hickses had paid for an inspection, but many of the problems were hidden behind the redone walls. Mr. Hicks said he wished that he had picked up on subtle signals the inspector may have been sending. “He was a little bit more apologetic than he should have been,” he said. In the basement, the inspector noticed that the beams supporting the kitchen had been notched to run wiring and pipes, reducing the load-bearing capacity. “You are not supposed to do that,” he told them, “but are you going to have 40 people in the kitchen?”

They had fallen in love with the house, and the broker’s account of how the previous owner had rescued it. “We got kind of fed this story about how this woman was a hero,” Mr. Hicks said.

hey had not known the level of deep disrepair that the previous owner, Ms. Royal, had encountered when she bought the house. They had not seen an article that ran in The New York Times in 2010, detailing her efforts to bring it back with a crew of handymen.

The charming bridge over the stream had to be replaced; the wood was untreated, and began disintegrating within a year. By last June, nearly three years after moving into the house, the Hickses moved out and contractors moved in; the family realized that they needed to tackle all of the necessary repairs at once. They were told that the repairs would take six or seven months, but it is likelier to be 11. They have stripped the walls to the bare boards to rework the electrical and plumbing systems. They have torn out siding, removed the mold and rotted wood that was found within, and laid a massive beam to support the second floor atop columns that extend through the basement.
They are also adding 1,000 square feet of new space, including a large upstairs bedroom that looks out over the footbridge. They are living in a rental townhouse nearby and hope to move back in by May. They estimate the total cost of repairs and the expansion at about half the purchase price.

Ms. Royal, who now owns the organic Strawberry Fields Farm in Sherman, Conn., with family berry picking, said in a telephone interview, “I’m really horrified that they’re having all these problems.”

In the three years she lived in Millburn, she insisted, she did not put in new plumbing, aside from the water heater. Her winters had been relatively mild, and when it did freeze, she kept her faucets dripping and never had a problem. The electrical work she had done was by a licensed electrician, she said, and added that she had indeed put in a beam to provide support in the absence of the removed wall. (The Hickses say that whatever Ms. Royal put in — to them and their contractor, it appeared to be simple framing — was insufficient to support the second floor.) In an email following up the telephone call, Ms. Royal added, “I am troubled by the angst directed toward me as the seller. They bought an old house!”

Were the Hickses to offer advice to home buyers, Mr. Hicks said, “you should forge and manage your own relationship with your inspector,” and make clear you want to hear the bad news. In houses that have undergone extensive renovation, he urges that buyers ensure all the necessary permits were obtained. “I don’t know how I’ll ever buy a house again,” Ms. Hicks said. “I can’t imagine trusting anyone.”

A version of this article appears in print on February 21, 2016, on page RE1 of the National edition with the headline: When a Dream Becomes a Money Pit. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe

The goggles were strapped to my face like a scuba mask. Only instead of fish, a studio apartment was wavering in my field of vision.

I moved forward, trying to enter the bathroom. Feeling slightly seasick, I hit the wall. This was embarrassing. I tried again and smacked into the door frame.

“Are you teleporting?” asked Jason Darcy, a data scientist and software engineer who works for Halstead Property.

I’d come to Halstead’s Manhattan headquarters to test the virtual reality technology that the company is developing. I’d already perused a 400-square-foot West Village resale using a Samsung Gear headset.

But the Halstead team was most excited about a four-story building in Astoria, Queens, that did not yet exist. Halstead had hired a company called Virtual Xperience to create a virtual rendering based on the architectural plans. The idea was to have potential buyers wear an Oculus Rift headset and “walk” around the building. The more realistic the experience, the more likely a client might be willing to pay the asking price of nearly $1.98 million for the building before construction crews even broke ground — at least that was the hope.

“We sell based on emotion and attaching that emotion to a vision,” said Matthew J. Leone, the senior vice president of digital marketing for Terra Holdings, the parent company of Halstead. “Imagine a buyer walking out onto the terrace and thinking: ‘If I bought this home and was having breakfast here, this is exactly what I’d see.’ That’s incredible. For a salesman, it’s a dream come true.”

So was I teleporting? I kept bumping into virtual walls because the headset was making me extremely nauseated. The Starship Enterprise this was not.

Halstead says it will introduce three-dimensional displays and virtual-reality headsets to its offices this year, and the brokerage isn’t alone. Greenland Forest City Partners and Douglas Elliman Real Estate are also hoping to add virtual-reality technology in the coming months, as are individual brokers looking for a competitive edge. Digital design firms charge tens of thousands of dollars to create virtual customizable spaces for high-end buyers.

This technology is expected to transform the real estate industry and, some say, make house-hunting more efficient. It can help to reduce the stress of relocating to a new city or buying from abroad and also allow buyers to visualize properties in development.

In some cases, the excitement of providing virtual-reality technology to clients has created an outsize sense of the technology’s importance. One company was keeping its VR prototype secret, lest a competitor try to steal it. But whether the technology is ready for widespread use — and whether consumers really want it — remains an open question.

What is now available to consumers and growing more popular is the 3D walk-through. This is an updated version of the panoramic camera shots that were all the rage a decade ago. There’s no headset. Users move their mouse or arrow keys from their computer keyboards and devices to navigate through rooms and zoom in on apartment features. Halstead has 3D walk-throughs available for 30 listings, including one on Cornelia Street in the West Village, but its goal is to get its entire inventory online. Mr. Leone said that people stay on a page with a 3D walk-through 10 times longer than those without.

The Boerum, a 20-story condominium at 265 State Street in Brooklyn, won’t be finished until late this year. But at the showroom of the developer and designer, Flank, brokers pull up renderings of specific apartments on a large-screen TV, using an iPad to move around. They can even take potential buyers over to the window to see the exact view, captured via drone. Buyers will know, for example, if their view might be blocked by another building.

Some virtual renderings are even more complex. Gonzalo Navarro, a principal of the digital design firm ArX Solutions, creates 3D walk-throughs showcasing specific furniture, artwork and fixtures for multimillion-dollar apartments.

“Imagine that you’re sending a check for $30 million and you have nothing to see,” Mr. Navarro said. “Our work is the closest you can get without having to build it. You feel the size. You get the textures.” His drones don’t just take photos but also capture video. So if there’s a lot of street noise, “I can’t lie to you,” he said.

The virtual apartments created by Mr. Navarro cost nearly $100,000 to make and take months to build. They can be viewed with an Oculus headset, Mr. Navarro said, but most clients don’t use this option. When presenting images of the 54-story Turnberry Ocean Club Residences in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., to the developer, Turnberry Associates, Mr. Navarro used a giant video wall to let the company’s executives virtually walk around the building without goggles. “We didn’t want the guy coming to write a $70 million check to get dizzy on us,” he said.

Jeffrey Hummel, the chief technology officer of Douglas Elliman, said that while virtual reality has a certain “wow” factor, as with any new technology, there are lessons to be learned. In his previous career as a financial services executive, Mr. Hummel gave his programming team pairs of Google Glass to test. “We had an outbreak of pink eye among all those people,” he said.

A quick fix for this, of course, is the Google cardboard headset, which typically costs less than $10. Randy Baruh, an associate broker for Corcoran, ordered a handful of these headsets and is planning to have them branded with his contact information and the Corcoran logo. He said he would distribute them at open houses along with his show sheets. (A quick response code on the sheet will start the VR app.) He has contracted with ProMedia, a New York-based production company, to create a few VR-capable listings. “It’s a way to set homes apart in this hypercompetitive environment,” he said.

Mr. Leone of Halstead says virtual reality could eventually eliminate the need for open houses. “If you can see the homes remotely and be more educated before you actually make a trip, you’ll make the process easier,” he said.

At Douglas Elliman, Mr. Hummel said it would be better to put large-screen curved TVs in select offices until the headset technology “comes of age.” He says the goggles might be better suited to international buyers so they can evaluate a property “before taking an expensive plane ride.”

Greenland Forest City Partners says its fully immersive VR is ready to go. Later this month, buyers who come to the sales office for 550 Vanderbilt, a new condo building in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, will be able to don headsets and take a virtual tour of the eight-acre public park planned around the development.

As for my test at Halstead headquarters, even after I took off the Oculus headset I was feeling a tad queasy. Meanwhile, Mr. Leone and his team discussed possible enhancements to the virtual experience. Later this year, haptic technology, or the science of touch, will let users see their own hands in the virtual world, allowing them to open closet doors and feel hot water from the faucet. Mr. Darcy said smells and tastes were also being developed.

Mr. Leone added, “Freshly cut lemons and baking cookies would create the same experience as you’d have in a real-life home.”

Every landlord knows that rent increases are a fact of life, but getting them right is another story.

Rents seem to only continue to go up. Nationally, the median asking rent increased 5.74 percent in the third quarter of 2015, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

But while many landlords raise the rent whenever it seems right, this isn’t the best strategy. You shouldn’t increase the rent because you’ve had an expensive year, or a major roofing job. Instead, your rental rates should be dictated by one very simple factor: the rental market.

Simply put, your rental price will be determined by how much tenants are willing to pay. Use anything other than this criterion to set your rent, and you run the risk of losing them and experiencing higher vacancy rates.

Let’s look at how you can accurately assess the market to determine the sweet spot—the best price that you can get for your property — and how to go about tactfully breaking the news to your tenants.

Ensure Compliance With the Law
First things first: Make sure your proposed rent increase is in compliance with state and regional laws, and of course, in accordance with the terms of your lease.

Rent control areas, which include Washington, D.C., and cities in California, Maryland, New York, and New Jersey, have specific requirements regarding rent increases, including the frequency of the increases and the amount of notice that you must provide. For all other areas though, you’ll still have to provide sufficient notice. In most states, 30 days’ notice is generally required for month-to-month leases. For fixed-lease properties, you’ll want to let tenants know before the lease is up. Commercial properties are usually less regulated, but still require compliance with the original lease agreement.

Give Extra Notice
Sure, you’re required to give enough notice to be in compliance with the law — but why stop there? If you can, give tenants a 60-day notice instead of just 30 days. This will give the tenant more time to prepare for the increase, and allows them a chance to shop around. If your increase is in line with market rates, they’ll see that there’s no better deal to be had. So get those notices ready early. For longer leases, this means at least 60 days before the lease is up. Timing your notices so that the rent increase will take place immediately after the lease renewal date will allow you to start collecting the increased rent as soon as you can.

When informing tenants about rent increases, make sure you put everything in writing. Without a written agreement, a rent increase will be difficult to enforce.

Try to Raise It Every Year, or at Each Lease Renewal Period
If you have a month-to-month lease, you’ll want to increase the rent once per year. If you’re on a longer lease, wait until the lease runs out, unless your rental agreement specifically states that you will evaluate and raise the rent mid-lease. Even if the market only allows for a 1 to 2 percent increase, this is a better choice than waiting years in between rent increases, and then having to raise the rent substantially. This will help tenants to get used to rent going up, and you’ll find them less likely to complain over a $20 per month increase as opposed to a sudden $200 jump.

Calculate the Rent Increase
The amount by which you raise the rent should be competitive with local rental market rates, so do your research. Take a look at what other similar rentals in your area are going for. You could also multiply the consumer price index by your current rental rate. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ most recent release indicates that the index for shelter increased 3.2 percent in 2015. Suppose your current rent is $1,200 per month. You could multiply $1,200 by 3.2 percent (or 0.032) for an increase of $38.40 per month. While a 3 to 5 percent annual increase is standard, you may want to adjust this to fit your situation and the local rental market.

Determine Why You’re Raising the Rent
Your tenants will want to know, and you’ll need an answer. Be truthful and make a list of reasons that the rent needs to go up, such as increased utility costs (if you pay them), rising insurance costs, higher taxes, and the cost of inflation, if these things have all increased in the last year. Other reasons for a rent increase may include the rising cost of maintenance and repairs or renovations or upgrades planned for the property.

Keep Your Tenants Happy
Also consider your tenants’ situation. If you have an excellent tenant who looks after the property and pays rent on time, you may want to cut them some slack as an incentive to stay. One way to do this is to show them what the rent increase was going to be, but with this number crossed out and with a smaller percentage written in instead. Communication is key to keeping the air clear, so be in touch with your tenant and be willing to talk to them about the increase.

Another option would be to consider offering your tenants a compromise. Propose a rent increase, and be prepared to lower the percentage if they are willing to sign a longer lease.

While rent increases can be stressful, they don’t have to be. Ensuring that you raise the rent in line with market values and communicate all upcoming changes with your tenants will go a long way toward making the process as simple and straightforward as it can be.

The impact of the housing crisis still lingers as the number of renters remains high in every large metro area nationwide since 2006, according to American Community Survey data.

A closer look at the stats show the number of renters is growing particularly quickly for the 18-to-34 year-old cohort (up 9.1 percentage points since 2006) and for minorities. For example, the Hispanic renter rate (up 8.7 percentage points) climbed nearly twice the rate of whites, African-Americans, and Asians since 2006, according to an analysis by the real estate website Trulia.
The metro areas with the largest gains in renters continue to be those that were the hardest hit in the housing crisis, such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, and parts of Florida.

Here are the cities seeing some of the strongest gains in households who are renting their homes:

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2016
More than 1.3 million – or 1.6 percent of the nation’s nearly 85 million residential properties – are vacant. That’s down 9.3 percent from the third quarter of 2015, according to RealtyTrac’s first quarter 2015 Residential Property Vacancy Analysis.
“With several notable exceptions, the challenge facing most U.S. real estate markets is not too many vacant homes but too few,” says Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. “The razor-thin vacancy rates in many markets are placing upward pressure on home prices and rents. While that may be good news for sellers and landlords, it is bad news for buyers and renters and could be bad news for all if prices and rents are inflated above tolerable affordability thresholds.”

RealtyTrac analyzed 147 metro areas with at least 100,000 residential properties and found that the following cities had the fewest number of vacant properties in the first quarter:

Our Technology
Our Technology Advantage
Our goal is to provide you with the best service and manage your properties efficiently and effectively. Our team has invested in a complete and modern software solution, AppFolio Property Manager. We are excited to share several of the new capabilities and how they will benefit you.
More effectively market your properties and fill vacancies sooner. AppFolio allows us to quickly advertise vacancies online, posting to our website, and hundreds of other listing sites. Applicants can also apply right from their smartphones.
Price rentals right for your market and reduce vacancies. AppFolio’s built-in rental comparison tool provides actual rental rates for units similar to yours in the same geographic location. This insight allows us to maximize your revenue and fill vacancies faster.
Screen for the best residents. Streamlined, built in resident screening includes standard background and credit checks along with past rent payment history. Screens can be completed in minutes – enabling us to place the highest quality residents quickly.
You will be paid faster and more securely. New functionality provides our team the ability to deposit funds directly into your bank account. No more waiting for a check in the mail.
Collect rent faster with online payment options. Modern residents expect easy, online payment options. AppFolio gives residents three convenient ways to pay electronically (Cash, E-check, or with a credit card).
On-demand access to your statements. Owner statements are securely posted to an online Owners Portal, saving time and paper. These simple statements provide you with a quick snapshot of your property details for the past month. We can also include maintenance invoices and additional reports you request.
Handle property maintenance issues faster. We use AppFolio for electronic work-orders and communication with vendors so we can quickly resolve issues. At your request, we can email you a copy of the work order and relevant information giving you real-time updates.

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2016
The New American Home, unveiled at the International Builder Show last week in Las Vegas, was designed with roommates in mind. The 5,200-square-foot home tied in nontraditional living arrangements for extended families or roommates who may be sharing the same roof to ease financial burdens.

The home, designed by Element Design Build, incorporated affordability and cohabitation as top concerns, including a second floor that can accommodate aging parents or recent college graduates who are moving back home. The intent was to accommodate two families comfortably.

Industry professionals say they are seeing increasing demand for properties that can easily be shared by extended family members, roommates, or even rented out to tourists. Indeed, for the year ending June 2015, 13 percent of buyers purchased a home to accommodate multiple generations, according to research by the National Association of REALTORS®. What’s more, a quarter of all buyers say they want a separate suite in their home with a kitchenette to accommodate extended family members or roommates, according to research by John Burns Real Estate Consulting Inc.

“A lot of their motivation for doing that is to make the financial step of buying their home more doable,” says Linda Mamet, vice president of corporate marketing at TRI Pointe.